Sword and Song (22 page)

The evening was gloomy as we clattered into the stable yard; torches had been lit. Grooms rushed to take the horses’ reins, and to pet and cosset the tired animals. No one troubled
themselves about us. Alyson escorted Esther into the house, with the gallantry of a man twice his age; Heron followed without a word.

Hugh heaved his bags over his shoulder; he’d decided to collect his other belongings from the inn tomorrow. He stepped back out of the way of a groom, eyed me perceptively.

“I know you’re not happy with this, Charles. But he’s going to make another attempt on you, and we’ll have a better chance of catching him here. A stranger is always
noticeable in a country district – he’ll be far more conspicuous than if he was in town.”

“You’re underestimating him,” I said. The book. The book was at the heart of the mystery; there was something among its tunes that made it so valuable a man would murder for
it. I should have had a better look at it while I had the chance.

But I knew I’d looked long and hard at it and seen nothing.

It was late and I was too tired to think clearly. I went to my room, stripped off my clothes and fell into bed. I slept fitfully and was awake before Fowler scratched on the
door. He came in with his shaving gear and a pot of green stuff that looked disgusting.

“My grandmother swore by this,” he said. “Cures every wound imaginable.”

“What’s in it?”

“Marigolds.”

“No, thank you,” I said.

I submitted, of course – Fowler has a tendency to assume that no means yes. I let him smear the ointment on a wad of cloth and bandage the scratch on my side, then submitted to being
shaved. He had every word of our adventures pat and only one person could have told him.

“Heron’s asked you to keep an eye on me, hasn’t he?”

“Did you expect anything else?” Fowler’s lean face twisted into a grin. “Or anyone better qualified for the task?”

“Or more modest?” I murmured.

“You’re not in the good books of the guests, you know,” Fowler said, standing back to take a critical look at my face. “Wanted music and where were you?”

I couldn’t imagine I’d been missed by anyone but the musical ladies. “If I’d been here, they’d all have been out massacring the local birds and hares.”

“And the colonial gent has gone off.”

I sat up sharply, to Fowler’s annoyance. “Casper Fischer? Left? Permanently?”

The book was his. And I’d only had his word that it was had been lost...

Fowler was obviously enjoying my consternation. “Gone off to this Shotley Bridge place.”

I sank back. “To his cousins? Are you sure?”

“That’s what he told Crompton.”

“The butler?”

“Said he’d be back tomorrow. Staying overnight with them.”

“His servant’s gone with him, I suppose?”

“What servant? He doesn’t have one.”

I frowned. “Then who shaves him?”

“Never asked,” Fowler said surprised. “None of my business.”

“Has he left his belongings?”

“Don’t trust anyone, do you?” Fowler said, finishing off his shaving with swift sure strokes. “Think he’s done a runner?”

“Has he left his belongings?” I repeated.

“Don’t know.” He sighed. “I could ask, I suppose.”

“Without raising suspicions,” I said quickly.

I pondered on the implications of Fischer’s disappearance. He was much too old to be the apprentice but Esther had seen the attacker in the wood meet another man. There were two men in
this business, and there was no saying Fischer was not the second. I wondered where he’d been when I was attacked in the garden the first night at Long End.

Fowler started to pack up his shaving gear. “Crompton’ll know. He’ll tell me. Tell me more than he’ll tell anyone else.”

Wiping the last soap from my face, I stared up at him. “
You
? Oh God, Fowler, don’t tell me – ”

His grin was huge. “I won’t tell you anything you don’t want to hear. You know me, soul of discretion. Just say he’s a
friend
of mine.”

I remembered the looks the butler had given me, his quiet determination to do me favours – to make sure my notes were delivered, for instance. “Fowler! You didn’t happen to
tell him I was a –
friend
of yours too?”

“I said you were to be trusted.”

Dear God, the fellow had probably got entirely the wrong idea about me!

“Knew him in London,” Fowler said, “when he was working for Sir George Ellison. He’s a good man. Honest,” he added, “unlike me. And I don’t take kindly
to my friends being threatened.”

“Someone’s threatening him?” I didn’t need to ask over what. “Has he told you who?”

“He’s not said anything about it.” Fowler lounged against the back of the ancient armchair. “But I know the signs. You learn ’em quickly,” he said dryly.

“Any idea who it could be?”

“One of the other servants, for sure.”

“But you don’t know which one?”

He shrugged. “Could be any of ’em. They’re all new barring the London coachman they brought with ’em.”

“A servant,” I mused, my thoughts suddenly skittering off in another direction. Esther had said that the second attacker in the woods was poorly dressed, like a servant. A servant
would have found it easy to attack me in the grounds. Servants go everywhere and are never seen – ladies and gentlemen treat them as part of the furniture. And it was surely unlikely that
there were two criminal servants on the staff – lawyer Armstrong had interviewed each of them himself. He was a shrewd man; it would be odd if he had been deceived once, out of the question
that he should be deceived twice. So the servant involved in the plot against me was probably the one threatening the butler...

“Do you think you could get a name out of Crompton?”

Fowler shrugged. “Possibly.” There was a reserved look in his eyes that made me wonder if he would tell me if he did know. “He’s a good man, Crompton, but he
doesn’t have staying power. He can’t
endure
. Troubles wear him down quickly. He’s had to run from something like this before and there’s going to come a time he
doesn’t have the spirit to do it again.” He pushed himself from the back of the armchair. “Still, it won’t happen this time. And when I know the name, I’ll have the
fellow in his grave in minutes.”

“Not before I’ve had a chance to talk to him first, I hope.”

He laughed softly.

It was a frustrating day. It rained from morning to night, a thin fine drizzle from overhanging grey clouds. Occasionally, the day grew even darker and rain battered at the
windows. The servants brought in candles but the effect of lighting them in daylight was to make the day seem gloomier still. The ladies languished in the drawing room casting their eyes over
magazines and novels in a desultory way before tossing them aside. One or two pondered on why Esther had dashed off to town the previous day. “And in the company of Heron, my dear! Of course
her maid was with her, but...”

The gentlemen repaired to the dining room to play cards; from time to time, one would wander in to stare morosely out of the window at the rain then wander back out again. Mrs Widdrington
suggested some music; Mrs Alyson pressed her hand to her head. “I simply could not bear it!”

They bore it after a light luncheon. Hugh had been off to the inn to fetch his belongings; I glimpsed him entering the hall on his return, shaking the rain from his greatcoat and hat. By the
time he arrived at the luncheon table, he was dressed in his favourite blue coat with a darker waistcoat enlivened by a hint of embroidery, of such quality that he put every other gentleman in the
shade, including Alyson who’d come down in one of his favourite bright colours, an oddly green shade of yellow. Within minutes, half the ladies were swooning over Hugh; another half hour, and
it was firmly fixed that the afternoon should be spent in dancing.

So the furniture was pushed back in the drawing room and I was ensconced at the harpsichord all afternoon, playing dance tunes as Hugh instructed the ladies in the latest imports from Paris. I
reflected wryly on his instant success; he made a fine figure in his turquoise coat, with stockings whiter than any stockings have a right to be, and his black hair gathered at the nape of his
neck.

Some of the gentlemen either thought Hugh too dangerously handsome to be left alone with the ladies or recognised an opportunity to get near the ladies themselves. Within a few minutes we were
forming sets so large we had to open the drawing room doors so the dancers could gallop out into the hall and back. I was startled at one point to see Ord dancing with his wife – an unusual
proceeding for any gentleman. But Lizzie was looking particularly fine in her enjoyment of the dance; her eyes were sparkling, and her hair had come loose and was trailing round her neck.

Midway through the afternoon, I gave the harpsichord up to the younger musical lady and went upstairs to my room for a piss and a few moments’ rest. I was halfway up the stairs when I
heard my name called and turned to see Fowler’s head poking out of one of the doors to the servants’ stairs. He beckoned me; I followed him into the narrow musty servants’
passageway running behind the reception rooms.

He eased the door shut, so we were lit only by a single candle in a sconce on the wall. The air seemed immediately more stuffy; I sneezed. Fowler grinned.

“The American gent,” he said. “He’s left his bags. A big trunk and half a library of books, evidently. And a package of business letters too.”

I was relieved – I rather liked Fischer. “Looks like he’s coming back then.” Not that that necessarily cleared him of involvement; he would have ridden through Newcastle
to reach Shotley Bridge and might have found an opportunity to attack us.

“This weather’ll hold him up but he could be back tonight,” Fowler said. “Depends how chatty he gets with his cousins.”

I nodded. “Had a word with Crompton yet? About the
other matter
?”

He gave me a reproachful look. “As if I’m going to raise the subject in the servants’ hall!” He grinned. “I’ll deal with it later.”

“Tonight, no doubt,” I said dryly.

“No doubt.”

“In the butler’s pantry.”

“Not his pantry, no,” Fowler said wickedly. I suddenly realised I must change the subject; the less I knew about this the better.

“Where’s Heron? I’ve not seen him all day.”

“Writing letters and reading some dead fellow that wrote poetry.”

“Virgil?” I asked, recalling Heron’s preferences.

“How should I know?”

A few minutes later I was scratching at Heron’s door and hearing his voice call entry. I opened the door on to a room bright with candles. Heron was comfortable in a large winged armchair,
browsing through a volume of what did indeed seem to be Virgil; a large, filled brandy glass stood on a table at his fingertips. He waited until I’d closed the door, then said, “Are you
going to tell me what happened yesterday morning, before we met you at the Fleece?”

I laughed, accepted a glass of brandy and a comfortable chair opposite him.

Heron knows all about the world that runs alongside our own; on one occasion, he accompanied me there. He listened as I related my visit to the apprentice’s lodgings, was grimly amused by
my tale of being chased by cleaver-wielding butchers and nodded approvingly when I said I’d left the book in All Hallows churchyard in that other world.

“And there was nothing about the book that struck you as odd?” he asked after I’d finished.

“Apart from his version of
Winchester Old
, no. Oh, and the tunes were the Old Version.”

“I don’t think we are dealing with ecclesiastical controversies,” Heron said dryly. “No marginal notes?”

“Not that I noticed. I need another look at it but I can only go to Newcastle a limited number of times before Edward Alyson decides I’m not value for money!”

“You need not concern yourself with that any more,” Heron pointed out. “You are after all marrying a wealthy woman.”

I gritted my teeth.

“I will, of course,” Heron said, “give the bride away.”

I went back to the harpsichord, to find the ladies and gentlemen lounging exhausted over refreshments brought in by Crompton and the footmen: macaroons, sweetmeats and wine.
Hugh was chatting to a giggling Lizzie Ord but soon made his excuses and came across to where I was debating whether to follow Heron’s excellent brandy – obviously brought with him
– with one of Alyson’s inferior offerings.

“I’ve been having a good gossip,” Hugh said, grinning. “Devil take it, Charles, you never told me you were having so much fun!”

I sighed.

Hugh nodded at our host who was whispering something in his wife’s ear. “The old uncle would have been horrified to see his nephew in charge here.”

“You knew the old man?”

“Met him a couple of times at the Blackett country house.” The Blacketts, I recalled, lived three or four miles nearer Newcastle. “He was a pleasant fellow, but he did have a
biblical approach to behaviour. All
thou shalt not
.”

“Not married himself, I take it?”

Hugh grinned. “His sister – Alyson’s mother – soured him. She ran off with a ship’s captain. Got married in Calais.”

“I know – I saw the family Bible. Alyson’s quite open about it.”

Hugh looked surprised. “Not to his guests. I had it all from Ridley who knew the old man well. Strictly hush-hush, he said.” He looked disappointed. “Damn it, Charles,
don’t spoil my surprises!”

“If the uncle didn’t want him to inherit,” I said, “he should have disinherited him in his will!”

“You don’t disinherit family, Charles! Not unless there’s something seriously wrong.” His expression sobered; he glanced round to make sure no one was listening.
“So what are we going to do?”

“About the murderer? I don’t have the least idea.”